


in literally any other universe

by sicktodeathoflogic



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Western, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 01:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8558569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sicktodeathoflogic/pseuds/sicktodeathoflogic
Summary: I'm cleaning up my documents, and I found a bunch of Bellarke AUs that I started but couldn't finish. Feel free to read and borrow if you want to finish them, just credit me (please and thank you).





	1. At the Ballet

Clarke has been with the Blakes since the beginning. Well, she works with Octavia, which means that Bellamy will automatically be there. He does this for various reasons, all of them starting with “I am her older brother, so,” and Clarke has learned to ignore the rest of the sentence. Octavia’s the real star, this year’s Sugar Plum Fairy in the ARK Dance Company’s production of the _Nutcracker_. No one has received the honor of being the Sugar Plum Fairy at such a young age since Clarke’s mother was prima ballerina. But Clarke doesn’t like thinking about that. Instead, she focuses on what she can do, like mending the tear in the lace of one of the snowflakes’ costumes. How they always manage to rip in the same spot is beyond her, but she threads another needle and goes about stitching it up.

Her job certainly isn’t as glamorous as Octavia’s (costume designer doesn’t really have the same ring as ballerina) but she likes the ballet environment: the thrill of an opening performance, the bustle to wrap slippers and make costume changes, the anxiety when things go wrong, and the music – especially the music. Clarke loves listening to the orchestra filtering softly into her costume room. It reminds her of her childhood, in a painfully nostalgic way, when the colors seemed brighter and the dancers miraculous. Everything is less mystifying now, but Clarke allows herself to still be enveloped in the music.

“Hey, do you think the straps are too tight?”

Clarke looks up from her work to find Octavia with her back to her, gesturing to the straps with her hands. She’s wearing one of Clarke’s most recent designs for the Sugar Plum Fairy, which Octavia adores. The bodice is cream and white with gold trim, and gold-white lace juts out at the waist at the perfect angle. Putting the snowflake costume aside, Clarke gets up and tugs at the straps holding up the bodice. “Can you move your arms?”

Octavia performs a few steps gracefully in the doorway. “I can’t tell.”

“Try it for today,” Clarke orders, settling back with her tutu. “If it doesn’t work, I can unstitch the straps a bit to give you some room.”

“Alright.” Octavia looks anxious, something that Clarke isn’t accustomed to seeing. Octavia Blake is known for having the tenacity of a tiger, especially when the Great Indra is her personal ballet instructor. Now, she appears almost afraid.

“You’ll be fine."

Octavia lets out a little nervous laugh. “It’s only a dress rehearsal, Clarke, of course I’ll be fine. Except,” she starts again, biting her lower lip, “I’m kind of worried about Lincoln.”

Clarke stops sewing. The Company took a chance when they chose Lincoln as Octavia’s new partner, especially when a disastrous incident with her previous partner, Atom, left Octavia with an injured ankle that took six months in physical therapy to heal. Bellamy threatened to sue everyone he came across that day, and was one word from Octavia away from punching the president of the ensemble, Thelonious, squarely in the jaw. (The fact that Bellamy even let Atom leave ARK Ensemble _alive_ still baffled Clarke, but she never brought it up.) Recalling the incident to Clarke later that day, Bellamy justified his irrational rage by saying he never liked Jaha anyway. Clarke had nodded in silent approval.

After that, Bellamy made sure that he was included in the auditioning process with Octavia, and snuck Clarke in with him at his sister’s request. Lincoln was one of the last candidates for the Sugar Plum Fairy’s Cavalier, and while he was completely unknown, he was by far the best. He and Octavia immediately had this chemistry in their dancing that none of the others had, and his strength and precision were unparalleled. Octavia was visibly overjoyed when Marcus Kane, head choreographer, announced that Lincoln would be her new Cavalier. Clarke saw the twinkle in her eye and considered briefly that there might be some chemistry outside of the dancing, as well.

Naturally, Bellamy did not approve. “I don’t trust him,” he stated. Clarke raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “He doesn’t smile, and I think there are more than a few tattoos under his leotard.”

Clarke is drawn out of her reverie. “Lincoln is one of the best people you’ve ever danced with, O,” she says with complete sincerity. “It shows, trust me.”

“But what if something happens?” Octavia whispers. “I don’t want to get Lincoln in trouble!”

Clarke gives her a skeptical look. “With the Company, or with Bellamy?”

Before Octavia can answer, another dancer bursts into the room with a gold tiara. “O, you left your crown in the dressing room again! I swear to God, you’re going to forget it during a performance one of these days. Oh, hey Clarke!”

Clarke greets Raven, who is playing Clara and donning a looser pink costume, also of Clarke’s design. She’s grateful that she and Raven are on better terms now since Finn was transferred from the Company. It had been awkward for a while after finding out that Finn had been cheating on Raven with Clarke while he worked as part of the tech crew for ARK, but particularly uncomfortable when first Raven switched troops to surprise him. Needless to say, Finn’s indiscretions slapped him in the face – quite literally – when Clarke and Raven found out. Bellamy discovered Clarke crying behind two costume racks in the storage closet not long after. He offered to “beat the ever-living shit out of Finn, the slimy asshole,” and Clarke sniffled a little laugh because she knew he was serious, but declined. Bellamy had nodded and draped an arm around her shoulders, rubbing her back until she was ready to leave.

“Ow! Are you trying to stab me with that?” Octavia protests to Raven, who is trying to put the tiara in her hair.

Raven laughs. “Listen, it’s not my fault you put enough hairspray on this bun to make it rock solid! Jesus, just hold still. We can’t have our Sugar Plum Fairy looking frazzled, even if she has a thing for her Cavalier.” Octavia gasps and, because she refuses to move for fear of redoing her hair, flips Raven off. Raven sees the gesture through the grungy mirror left on Clarke’s wall and chuckles.

“At least I’m not sleeping with the Prince,” Octavia counters.

Clarke yells, “Really?” in a suggestive tone just as Raven slaps Octavia’s arm for betraying her confidence. “Since when?”

Raven rolls her eyes. “A few weeks ago. Me and Wick are,” she pauses, probably thinking of the most delicate phrase to describe it, “casual.”

“Huh.” Octavia and Clarke share a significant smile, but don’t probe any further. Raven’s been tight-lipped about her romantic life since Finn and no one blames her, so any information they get is cherished.

A voice crackles over the speaker system set up backstage, giving the dancers a fifteen-minute warning. Clarke finishes her last stitch and snips off the excess thread. The hole is hardly noticeable now. She did a pretty good job, if she does say so herself. She joins Raven and Octavia upstairs and returns the costume to its owner, who apologizes profusely for ripping it in the first place. Clarke shrugs off the apology and leaves the girls to change. The dressing room is a bit chaotic, with make-up and hair supplies overflowing from personal bags onto every available surface. The guys’ room is worse, if she’s honest, having had to clean it before.

Clarke smiles sadly. Once upon a time, she could have been one of them, but not anymore. She leaves before she thinks on it too much, and walks straight into Bellamy. “Oh! Hey, Bell.”

“Fancy running into you here, Princess,” he quips dryly. “Everything ready?”

“Yeah,” says Clarke, rubbing her hands on her jeans. She understands that acknowledging her stupid nickname after all this time would only make things worse. “You wouldn’t believe how many rhinestones I had to replace today.”

“I keep telling you to get an assistant or something.”

Clarke snorts derisively. “Right, because my personality _really_ allows for working well with others.”

“Who said you’d work _with_ them? All you’d have to do is order them around, something you’re quite good at,” Bellamy jokes, walking with her towards the back stairway that leads to the catwalk above the stage. They often sit there during rehearsals and performances because it’s the least crowded place to see the dancers up close. The only part they’ll need to move for is the second act, when stagehands shake out snow onto the stage from above. It’s also a nice place to talk during rehearsals, for Kane has the ears of a hawk when it comes to sounds in the audience around him, but is completely oblivious to Clarke and Bellamy’s sniggering at the costumes that Jaha forces out of the archives. Evidently, not all of Clarke’s designs are appreciated, but she takes it in stride. She reminds herself that they’ll come crawling to her after some parents complain that the Mouse King costume is so distorted it looks like there’s a Naked Mole Rat King in the ballet instead.

Clarke pushes in front of Bellamy right before the stairs, and aggressively takes them two at a time. He cries out something about breaking the rules, but she’s laughing and beats him to the top (he claims she “barely” beat him). They settle against a brick wall that has turned black from grime over years of productions and wait for the rehearsal to begin. Once the cast and crew have all accumulated on stage, Kane reminds them of how little time they have and how far they have to go before this “shamble” is performance-ready. He never raises his voice or displays any visible hostility, but his manner expresses a pent-up anger just waiting to be unleashed on the nearest victim, and all the dancers can feel it.

“Finally,” Kane concludes, almost managing to smile at the Company, “I’d like to introduce a special guest, who has agreed to help me critique tonight’s rehearsal. She is one of my dearest friends, and has also starred as the Sugar Plum Fairy in a previous production by ARK Ensemble. Please welcome: Abigail Griffin.”

The dancers and stagehands erupt in quiet whispers of disbelief as the legend herself emerges from the darkness of the audience. She holds herself with a calm countenance as she takes in the performers before her. Carefully, she inspects every person, and wherever her eyes flicker, the room becomes silent. She seems to look for something amidst the mass of people, and frowns slightly when she cannot find it. Decisively, as if it had been her intention all along, she walks to where Octavia stands next to Lincoln and smiles condescendingly. Octavia respectfully curtsies.

“I look forward to seeing your performance,” says Abby. She glances at Octavia’s costume for a moment, and looks again at the people around her. She frowns once more before exiting to the small table in the audience, leaving a deafening silence in her wake that Kane breaks by calling for places. The speakers hung on the theater’s walls begin to play their prerecorded instrumental of Tchaikovsky, and thus the dress rehearsal commences.

Clarke isn’t aware of how tightly she’s been holding a fist until Bellamy points it out to her. “Hey, you okay?” he asks. “Your knuckles are white.”

“Yeah,” she responds, though her answers are mostly instinctual at this point. “I’m fine.”

“Why the hell is your mom here?”

“I don’t know.” It’s the truth, which makes Clarke even angrier. She and her mom were not on speaking terms, let alone on the level of visiting each other where they worked.

“She’s really fucking intimidating.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, this production of the _Nutcracker_ just got a lot more interesting,” Bellamy smiles sarcastically, nudging Clarke with his shoulder.

Clarke forcefully sets her jaw. She fails to see the humor in any of this.

* * *

Abby defies Clarke’s expectations by not seeking her out during the _week_ that Kane decided was necessary for her to be there. This could be due partially to the fact that Clarke’s workroom is below ground, surrounded by a labyrinth of halls and storage closets, and Clarke doubts that her mother is familiar with any section backstage apart from her old dressing room. Clarke decides that the mature and _obvious_ thing to do is avoid Abby at all costs by secluding herself with her costumes. There’s not a lot left for her to do except last-minute repairs, so she begins sketching out ideas for the upcoming show, _Cinderella_.

As far as she knows, dress rehearsals are going well. Octavia and Raven are anxious to earn Abby’s approval, so when Clarke sees them at the end of the day they are always past the brink of exhaustion. Kane backs Abby’s decisions to the hilt, according to Bellamy, making the dancers run and rerun movements for hours. So really, Clarke concludes, her mother is just too busy to search out the family disappointment.

Clarke hears footfalls in the corridor and tenses; maybe Abby found the time to have a reunion. She turns herself away from the door and furiously scribbles in her sketchbook just as a light rapping on the doorframe fills the room. Clarke scowls. Her instinctive need to ignore her mom was cowardly and unhealthy, so she slowly raises her gaze to the door, only to find Bellamy, one arm brimming with food.

He takes her silence as an invitation to enter and drops the takeout on her workstation, ignoring any semblance of order that she had there. “A small woodland creature told me that the Princess has been spending too much time in the dungeon without nourishment.”

Clarke considers commenting on his insistence to compare themselves to fairytale characters, but simply rolls her eyes and grabs the boxes of Chinese food; she knows that it’ll convey the same message. “I’m fine, Bellamy.”

“Right,” he says around a forkful of lo mein. “Avoiding your mom like the plague and refusing to get fresh air or human interaction during your workday is definitely a sign of sound judgment. Really, people with mommy issues should be learning from you.”

“Do you always have to be so sarcastic?”

“Of _course_ not.”

Clarke sighs, stabbing at her orange chicken. “It’s hard, okay? I’ve never really forgiven her for what she did to my dad, and her prancing around the ARK – pretending like nothing happened – isn’t helping.”

Bellamy puts down his food and looks at her. Clarke knows that look – it’s the same he look he gave her when she first told him about her dad. She hadn’t been working at the ARK for long when the anniversary of her father’s incarceration sprung up on her. Clarke visited him later that day and, as usual, she only spoke to him from behind a small table. He looked so much older since she saw him last, but she smiled and told him about her job at ARK, the theater he had helped bring to fame with the help of Clarke’s mother. His joy at her news almost broke her heart back in two.

Later that night, Clarke showed up, drunk, on the doorstep of the Blakes. She wanted to talk to Octavia, but Bellamy was the only one home. Without asking any questions, he took her inside and put her on the couch, a garbage bag placed by her head in case she needed to puke. Before she could stop herself, Clarke found herself spilling her guts out to Bellamy about how her father was thrown in prison, a punishment that didn’t match his crime. Her mother had been the one to turn him in. Clarke had been fifteen.

The look he gave her, the look he gives her now, was full of a painful empathy, like Bellamy wanted to help but didn’t know how.

Clarke gives Bellamy a small smile. “It’ll be okay. I just need to get through these goddamn performances without any major problems.”

Bellamy pauses, as if to check if Clarke means it, before patting her knee. He picks up his food again and flashes her his trademark smirk. “But Clarke,” he says, tossing her a fortune cookie, “when does _anything_ at ARK go as planned?”


	2. Expect Espionage

Clarke meets him on a misty Thursday in the Austrian countryside. She’s been casing this mark – some famous English businessman, apparently – for weeks, and finally found the right time to act: early morning, after the mark’s infamous art gala. The estate house that had hosted the gala seems frightfully out of place to Clarke: a towering, Americanized mansion in the midst of the traditional farmhouses with brown, thatched roofs. The house, like its owner, appears to be built in arrogance, attempting to challenge the magnificent Alps standing behind it. Clarke really doesn’t see the point in such conspicuous consumerism.

She belays herself down the estate wall via a complicated set of pulleys that she barely managed to anchor onto the roof, but pauses when she sees a figure in black. The person silently uses a series of grappling hooks and the estate’s many balconies to scramble towards the fifth floor, where the mark would be sleeping. They notice each other immediately, of course, and this spurs the shadowy figure into moving faster.

Clarke lowers herself expertly for the first two floors, but feels a jolt around the third. Cursing, she adjusts her pulleys, but to no avail. She’s stuck. Glancing below her, she sees the unknown assailant using the agility of a spider to climb from balcony to balcony. Under different circumstances, Clarke would have no qualms about shooting him. There would be no time for him to draw his weapon, using all of his upper body strength to propel him upwards. But the mark’s security is top-notch, mostly ex-military, and the next patrol would be turning to her side of the house soon; she couldn’t risk the chance of exposure.

Thinking quickly, Clarke cuts herself free from her harness and dangles by it, a few feet to the right of the nearest floor. She rocks back and forth, praying the pulleys will hold, and lands as silently as a cat onto the balcony. She’s only one floor above the mark. A soft _clunk_ below her feet and Clarke is immediately looking over the balcony’s edge. The figure in black is looking up at her, grinning.

Clarke’s first thought is how handsome he is, for an enemy operative. His black, curly hair, dark eyes, and built figure all screamed “danger,” but in the intriguing, James-Bond sort of way.

Her second thought is that he’s beating her to the mark.

By the time Clarke throws herself over the ledge and walks through the French doors of the mark’s bedroom, she is greeted by the sound of a gunshot, muffled by a silencer. The mark is still in his bed, a pool of blood beginning to stain his pillow. His killer stands a few feet away, apathetic, and now pointing his gun at her.

“Sprechen Sie Englisch?”

Clarke nods, slowly raising her hands.

“Good.” The man breaks into another shit-eating grin. Clarke thinks, bitterly, that grinning is probably his thing. “I hope you don’t take this personally,” he continues, “but I can’t have anyone knowing I was here. And, considering we were both on the same job, I should think you’d prefer this over the humiliation.”

Against her better judgment, Clarke levels a glare directly into the man’s eyes. “Humiliation?”

“Well, I got to the target before you. Tough luck, Princess.”

Clarke scowls at the nickname. Oh, how she would _love_ to use this guy for target practice.

The man smiles, obviously pleased with her reaction. “I’m sorry, that was rude. You can throw something at me, if you like.”

“That’s not a wise thing to say to someone with a knife in their hand.”

In a flash, the spare blade Clarke keeps up her sleeve flies toward her aggressor with deadly aim. She delights in his moment of confusion before fleeing to hide behind the bed. However, her moment of glory is short-lived as the man begins unloading his clip into the mattress. Blood and duck down from the pillows sprinkle over her body. She retrieves her own gun and returns fire, purposefully breaking the expensive vases and other ornaments in the room. She needs security to come, and quickly, and figures that more noise will do just that.

More bullets, more shattered windows and furniture. Clarke finds this firefight almost exhilarating, finally feeling challenged by her opponent. And, strangely, she can tell that Tall, Dark and Handsome with the Large Handgun feels the same way.

Throwing herself behind an armchair near the balcony, Clarke pauses to reload. Around her, she can hear guests and staff in a panic, flooding out the mansion’s many doors. She can also hear the familiar sound of marching boots coming up the stairs. “How’re you doing?” she calls out, trying to mask the fact that she’s out of breath.

He responds from the other corner of the room with a strained laugh. “You worried about me, Princess?”

“Not really. I’m sure you can improvise.”

“Why,” three shots burst through the back of the chair above Clarke’s head, “would I need,” one narrowly misses her left leg, “to improvise?”

Clarke smirks. “Because,” she says, shooting at her opponent’s corner as she runs towards the balcony, “I’m taking your exit route.”

The man makes a cry of protest, but not before Clarke takes the spare rope she had seen earlier and starts descending down the wall. A few guards left watching the perimeter try to pick her off, but she makes quick work of them with shoulder shots.

The lawn swishes beneath her feet as Clarke runs towards the perimeter, where she has hidden her car. She looks back and sees the man fighting off at least five guards on the balcony.

He’s losing.

Clarke considers her options. On the one hand, this guy has just tried to kill her. He has killed her mark. Having him die here would make the situation easier to explain to her employers, and she can always say that she made the kill of the businessman. All she has to do is get in her car and take the back roads through the forest abutting the mansion’s grounds, and she would be in Vienna in time for lunch.

On the other hand _–_

Retrieving a rifle from her duffel, Clarke lines up her shot. In a matter of seconds, the guards on the balcony crumple to the floor. Through her scope, Clarke sees the man look around, bewildered. Before he can identify the origin of the gunfire, more guards enter the bedroom. Clarke feels her chest tighten, just as the man jumps from the fifth floor – is he insane? He lands abruptly in the bushes, and just to be safe, Clarke shoots the legs of guards coming around both sides of the house.

Limping, and cradling one of his arms, the man pulls out a motorcycle from the bushes. Clarke thinks that he must have hidden it there in case something like this happened, and she can’t help but feel impressed. Futile gunshots follow him as he mounts his bike and revs towards the front gate.

Clarke throws her rifle in the back seat and smiles. On the other hand, having this guy owe her a favor might be worth the risk. So, she drives.

Behind the Alps, the sun begins to rise.

* * *

Clarke learned a long time ago that, in her line of work, it’s always better to be honest with her employers, for several reasons. For one, they always seem to know (or can find out) when one of their operatives is lying. For another, there’s the simple fact that one of her handlers is her _mother_.

Abby rendezvous with Clarke along a bank of the Danube, dressed expensively. Clarke, in contrast, sports a hoodie and jeans combination that hides her bandaged injuries and weapons.

“So,” Abby says, leading them in a stroll down quiet streets, “it seems we have a new player to contend with.”

Clarke nods.

“Our clients were a bit upset that so much attention was drawn to this job, even if you technically got it done,” Abby continues. “As such, your cut is less.”

“I understand.” Clarke expected as much, but it still dents her pride. Her mother’s thinly veiled disappointment isn’t helping her feel any better, either.

Abby reveals a file from the folds of her trench coat. “Your next assignment. Try not to get carried away this time.” She turns to leave, when Clarke grabs her arm.

“Mom?” Clarke says, softly, knowing that her employers don’t like her to refer to Abby as her mother. However, Abby stops. “The other operative – I’ve never seen him before, but he was well-trained. Does he work for the Agency?”

“No.” Abby cracks a wry smile. “He doesn’t.”

The Agency for Retrieval and Knowledge Security, or ARK, is an organization that only hires people with a specific skill set, one that Clarke’s mother insisted she have from a young age. ARK has no government affiliations or corporate interests, but rather an infallible reputation for discretion, and that makes it powerful. Clarke’s whole life has been in some way influenced by this great entity; without it, she doesn’t know how she would live.

“Do we know who he is? Or why he was there at the same time as me?”

The next minute or so is filled with the clacking of Abby’s heels on the sidewalk. Her face is pensive. Then, she takes out her phone and taps out a few phrases before holding it up for Clarke to see. A grainy photo of the man she fought with fills the screen. “His name is Bellamy Blake. He’s a freelance agent in a similar line of work, but isn’t as concerned with subterfuge as the ARK is. He’s wanted in connection with murders in four countries, and has a bounty on his head from other powerful organizations.” Abby puts her phone back into her pocket. “You weren’t briefed on the possibility of meeting him because he hasn’t been seen in Europe for years.”

A dark car pulls up to them on the side of the road and the driver opens the back door for Abby. She climbs in, but not before looking Clarke in the eye. “Mr. Blake isn’t to be trusted, Clarke. If you meet on assignment again, your orders are to eliminate him. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” says Clarke. The car drives away swiftly, leaving Clarke alone by the river.

She opens her assignment and sighs. She needs to catch the next flight to Brazil.

* * *

_Two months later_

White hotels crowd the white beaches of Rio de Janeiro, and Clarke watches the sun catch the clouds on the horizon. There are worse places to be sent to, she thinks, pressing a hand against the glass of her hotel room window. After spending months living on remote steppes or in villages buried under mountains of snow, nightlife along the Atlantic was a welcome change.

That is what Clarke is preparing for, in fact. She turns away from the window and tugs a little at her evening dress, one that her mother had sent to her room upon her arrival. The dark blue fabric hugs her frame perfectly, proving her mother’s instinct for fashion is always right. Clarke carefully reapplies her lipstick, but she knows it ultimately won’t make a difference.

Clarke prefers theft assignments to assassinations, though she’ll never admit it. The art to a discrete theft – the infiltration, extraction, and departure, all without being caught or suspected – is a challenge that Clarke adores. And, if done correctly, the job requires to little to no injury to those involved. Really, it’s a win-win in knowledge retrieval.

The villa Clarke approaches in a sleek Porsche holds the secret weapon plans ARK agreed to return to their client. It’s also equipped, according to Clarke’s intel, with top-notch cyber security.

This should be fun.

The party is well underway by the time Clarke arrives, a calculated move on her part. She smiles at the doorman and flashes her diamond-studded bracelet, which serves as her invitation. No one of the mark’s standing would dare refuse entry to a woman brazen enough to wear seventeen carats on her wrist.

Going over the floor plan in her head, Clarke weaves her way through throngs of people, who are mostly young women and middle-aged men. In a distant ballroom, the heavy bass from a large speaker system vibrates through the walls. Grabbing a glass off of a caterer’s tray, Clarke looks for an excuse to get upstairs, and finds him. The man obviously has too much money, too much to drink, and is leering at her so obviously that she’s tempted to ask him if his eyes are stuck. Sucking in a breath, she saunters over. By the time she’s exhaled, a glittering smile is plastered on her face.

“Well, well, well,” the man says with a grin, his Portuguese slurred while a British accent surfaces. “We haven’t been introduced yet. I’m Gerald.”

Clarke fights back a snicker. Who names their kids Gerald anymore? “It’s lovely to meet you, Gerald. I was just thinking about us, and how we could become… better acquainted.” Clarke brushes his arm.

Gerald takes a moment to let that sink in, gaping like a fish at Clarke’s face. It’s not Clarke’s most subtle seduction, but she has a schedule to maintain. When Gerald takes an uncharacteristic turn but _not_ making a move, Clarke simply grabs his hand and begins to lead him upstairs, where countless other couples are going without raising suspicion with any security. Gerald eagerly follows.

Clarke finds an unoccupied bedroom near the mark’s study and shoves Gerald inside, giggling. The door closes, and Clarke’s face returns to normal. Pitiably, Gerald doesn’t notice, and instead focuses on undoing the buttons on his shirt. Clarke grabs a small Taser from her clutch; she might as well save him the trouble of trying to finish.

Discretely, Clarke locks the bedroom door behind her and moves toward the study door. She immediately recognizes the card reader and fingerprint scanner that stand between her and the plans. She pulls a skeleton-key card from her clutch, commissioned especially for this mission, and slides it into the scanner. It better work; ARK paid a pretty penny for the card. Clarke can feel her heartbeat beat faster as she waits. Finally, the first lock turns green.

Synthetic fingerprints are a specialty of Clarke’s, so she is not at all surprised when she gets through the second lock and the study door opens by itself.

The room is lined with old bookshelves and decorated in modern paintings. There is no clutter or personal affects, which Clarke reads as a sign that the mark doesn’t use the room very often, except for appearances, and for the safe. Clarke remembers the floor plan and goes directly toward the bookshelf holding dozens of volumes on Brazilian law. Carefully, after putting plastic gloves on, she removes the ones in the middle, revealing the small panel in the wall.

In a matter of minutes, Clark aligns the tumblers and the safe opens with a click. Its contents are dismal, compared to the other safes she’s cracked. A few hundred thousand dollars in cash, some files, and a few flash drives are all that lie waiting for her. Clarke feels a little disappointed. There could have been at least a secret ledger, or stolen jewels, but no. With a sigh, she leaves the money and throws the flash drives into her purse. As she takes pictures of the files, Clarke hears it: the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking behind the study door.

Damn. She must have tripped another silent alarm. Clarke quickly finishes her task and looks for a way out, but there aren’t many viable options. Her exit strategy was to leave the party almost unnoticed, for the study has one locked window and no other doors. She could stand and fight, but her orders were to commit the theft without raising suspicion. If she could dispose of the intruder quietly, then her plan could continue without interruption. Therefore, Clarke takes a position behind the study door and waits for the intrusion.

The sudden silence in the room invites the security guard to charge the study door with force. Clarke attacks from behind, relieving the man of his gun at least, but already she can tell that she is at a disadvantage because a) the man is extremely well-trained, and b) her outfit, however sexy, is not designed to double as sparring attire; Clarke’s shoes alone can end this fight for her by precariously holding her up.

The security guard yells out several threats in Portuguese before throwing Clarke onto the lone desk in the center of the room. Clarke groans as she skids across its surface, air forcefully leaving her lungs. She prays that the information she holds in her purse will survive (and be worth all this trouble). Clarke gets up and lands a few blows on the man, even managing to knock him sideways for a minute. She makes a run for the study door, but then she feels hands on her waist, lifting her… but the security man couldn’t have recovered that quickly… and she’s airborne, momentum shattering the one window of the study… thinking quickly, she grabs her purse with one hand and uses the other to cling to the window sill.

Clarke’s breathing quickens when she looks down, having only expensive cars to break her fall. No one would help her land; they are all too drunk or members of security. The footsteps of the guard get louder and Clarke mentally prepares herself for the pain.

But it doesn’t come.

Clarke’s body is strained and blood is pounding in her ears, but she can hear the skirmish, the guard crying out, the thud. Different footsteps approach, and when her savoir leans over the window’s ledge to help her, Clarke cannot believe her eyes.

Bellamy Blake.

Her surprise loosens her handhold and she starts to fall, but Bellamy reaches out to catch her, his hand in a sailor’s grip around her wrist. Clarke can see that the action was more instinctual than anything, for there is something in his eyes when he looks down at her now: uncertainty.

Clarke feels helpless and panicked. If he doesn’t lift her up now, then she might as well fall, for the result will be the same if more guards arrive. And yet, she can’t bring herself to demand it of him. Their stare is a standoff.

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

It takes a second for Clarke to register that Bellamy, in fact, said something, due to the situation at hand, and the fact that Bellamy looked damn good in a tux. “What?”

“In Austria. It was you that helped me escape.” There’s seriousness in his demeanor, like the incident had been bothering him for some time and he’s been waiting for an explanation.

If she were in better circumstances, Clarke would roll her eyes. As it is, Clarke can only let out a series of exasperated sighs and one, “ _Is this really the time?_ ”

Bellamy laughs, the solemnity in his countenance gone, but lifts her up to the study. “I guess we’re on the same assignment again.”

“I guess so.” Clarke grips her purse a bit tighter.

“I don’t suppose I could borrow your exit strategy this time?” Bellamy grins.

“Not really. I was planning on using the front door.”

“Princess,” he admonishes, and Clarke bristles, remembering the nickname, “I really didn’t think I’d have to bust you out of here completely.”

Clarke starts for the hall back to the ballroom. “Whatever. This time I’ll improvise.”

“Hold your horses, Your Highness,” Bellamy says, grabbing her hand and tugging her in the opposite direction. “As much as I’d love to settle that score, the servants’ entrance is the smarter move. Come on.”

He starts down the hall, and Clarke begins to follow, when she falters, remembering her mother’s words: _If you meet on assignment again, your orders are to eliminate him._

_Eliminate him._

She can do it. She’s been itching to use small piece in her clutch since she met Gerald. Bellamy’s back is turned. But that same feeling, the same hesitation from Austria rears its ugly head. She can do it, but she doesn’t _want_ to. For the first time since working at the ARK, Clarke feels a small flame of rebellion in the pit of her stomach. If Bellamy is a threat, why must she be the one to do kill him?

He saved her. He could have easily let her fall. It may have been to settle a debt, but escaping together was certainly not part of that debt. He hasn’t even asked for the plans.

“You coming, Princess?”

Clarke looks at Bellamy, and despite years of ARK training telling her otherwise, Clarke goes with her gut. She won’t kill him. She believes him to be sincere.

So, she follows him out of the mansion, onto the back of his motorcycle, and onto Rio’s glossy streets. It’s past midnight, and past Clarke’s check in time. She clings to her purse tighter than ever while air whips around her.

She prays that she hasn’t just made a huge mistake.


	3. For Purple Mountain Majesties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This AU has a premise based off the Hallmark movie "The Magic of Ordinary Days," which takes place on a Colorado farm in 1940s America.

The town is so small that Clarke can’t help but to look at everything with a mix of confusion and disgust. She is so used to green parks and brick buildings and street lamps, not these wooden shacks built down one main street. The sky above her is vast and uninviting; it saturates everything in a dry heat that is so strong that Clarke can feel herself perspire underneath her clothes. Everything seems to be covered in dust. She clutches her purse even tighter and feels her mother’s letter crinkle in her grip. How could she do this to her?

Reverend Jaha finally pulls the car up to the small church at the end of the lane. It has the same dull, off-white color as the rest of the town. He lets Clarke out of the car with a kind smile and carries her suitcases inside.

“Your mother made a good choice, you know,” he says offhandedly as they enter the parlor.

Clarke nods and pats down her dress, one of her finest, free of sand. She had thought it only fitting that she should wear something nicer, but she hadn’t realized it would look so out of place in the Colorado wilderness.

Jaha places her cases on the floor. “Are you sure you didn’t forget anything at the station?”

“I’m sure,” Clarke replies with a stiff smile. “My mother said she would send me my other things in time.” And she’ll probably be glad to get rid of them, she adds in her head.

“Of course. Well, I’m sure they’ll be here soon. Feel free to help yourself to something to drink.” Then Jaha leaves her, presumably to prepare himself for another arrival.

Clarke takes in the parlor. The room is simple, with modest furnishings that, she supposes, once had held vibrant color before the sun faded them into blandness. She moves in front of the mirror above the fireplace. With practiced ease, Clarke lets her hair out of her pins and quickly puts it back, blonde strand by blonde strand. She observes the rest of her face. She looks tired.

There’s a card tucked into the mirror’s frame advertising war bonds, and Clarke is just about to read it when the door to the church parlor bursts open. A young woman, who can’t be more than a few years younger than Clarke, seems to radiate enthusiasm and kindness. She approaches her with giddy apprehension, pale eyes and dark hair shining in the sunlight filtering through the parlor windows. “You must be Miss Griffin,” she says. “I’m Octavia. It’s so lovely to meet you!”

Clarke can’t help but smile a little bit. “Nice to meet you.”

“I’m sure he will be here soon, dear, so you two can – ”

“Octavia, please tell me you aren’t harassing our guest,” comes a voice from the hall.

Octavia rolls her eyes. “No, Lincoln, I’m not,” she calls out, before turning to Clarke again. “That’s my good-for-nothing husband, if you haven’t already guessed.”

A tall, dark man joins them in the parlor, and Clarke assumes that this is Lincoln. “Oh, I think I’m good for something,” he says, taking a few long strides and wrapping his arms around Octavia’s middle. Smiling, he plants a kiss on her cheek.

“Now, now, enough of that,” Octavia chides, blushing. “This is a special day, after all.”

A special day. Clarke would not have said so. This day is shrouded in stuffy traditions and the value of the Griffin name and most certainly not about Clarke’s feelings. It takes all her willpower not to frown at Octavia, for she knows that she doesn’t mean any harm, so she resolves to show a small, unaffectionate smile.

Clarke jolts at the loud, straining squeak of an old truck parking outside. Octavia immediately recognizes the sound and races outside as Jaha reappears, greeting Lincoln.

“She’s here! She’s here, and you’re _late_ ,” Clarke hears Octavia whispering in the hall. Octavia enters the doorway first, pulling a man by the hand.

“Miss Griffin,” Reverend Jaha says with an air of authority, “allow me to introduce you to Bellamy Blake.”

Clarke allows herself a moment to take him in. He is similar to Lincoln, in many respects, for Bellamy is also tall, tanned from the sun, and muscular. Bellamy seems uncomfortable in his Sunday suit, though he wears it well. His dark hair is a bit longer than most other men’s, but he made an attempt to comb it back for today, which Clarke appreciates. Overall, she feels mostly surprise. When her mother had made this arrangement, Clarke thought that surely she would have some uncouth or obscene man, not… Well. She would be lying if she said that Bellamy wasn’t easy on the eyes.

Bellamy seems to studying her in a similar fashion, though more reservedly. Meanwhile, Octavia and the reverend talk about Clarke’s long journey from Denver and how tired she must be and how awful the whole situation is, but Clarke isn’t paying attention.

Thankfully, Lincoln steps in. “Perhaps, we should leave these two to get acquainted before we begin.”

Jaha and Octavia exchange looks before leaving to wait in the chapel, taking with them any feeling of familiarity that Clarke might have been feeling. Clarke looks between Bellamy and her shoes. The few feet of air separating them suddenly feels like an ocean, and the silence growing between them seems to suck all comfort out of the room.

Finally, Clarke clears her throat. “Are you sure about this?” She’s never been one to mince her words, and in a way, she hopes that she’s showing this to him, for future reference.

Bellamy nods.

“When I say ‘this,’” Clarke clarifies, putting a gloved hand over her abdomen, “I mean all of it.”

“I’m more than prepared to love that baby, ma’am,” Bellamy says with quiet intensity. Then he shakes his head.

“What?”

“You’re – you’re not at all what I imagined, ma’am. When the reverend told me about your… predicament,” Bellamy swallows, and Clarke fidgets uncomfortably, “I was more than happy to help. I just didn’t think you’d be so, you know, refined. No man in his right mind would leave you this way.”

Clarke doesn’t have an answer to that (though she has tried to rationalize it in her own mind), so she just says, “Thank you.”

Bellamy and Clarke are married that afternoon, in the heat of the July sun. There are no rings, no guests apart from Lincoln and Octavia, who also serve as witnesses, and no large reception. They make the trip out to his farmhouse that takes another hour. There are no other houses around as far as Clarke can see, and the land is flat, flat enough that Clarke feels she can make out the curvature of the earth. The mountains on the horizon look daunting and formidable, almost threatening her to stay in the valley.

Clarke is too tired to notice much about the house. They share a quiet meal before Bellamy goes to bed early. He offers her the master bedroom before going to another room without a word.

Surrounded by suffocating stillness, Clarke takes out the gold locket she has been hiding in the folds of her undergarments all day. Clutching it tightly, she cries herself to sleep.

* * *

Clarke wakes up later than she intends to. She tries to find Bellamy (her husband, she keeps telling herself), but can’t seem to navigate the house in the daylight. Inadvertently, she begins exploring her new home. She finds two bedrooms apart from the one she stayed in the night before. They were probably Bellamy and Octavia’s when they were young. One cot has sheets sprawled about – Bellamy must have slept here last night.

Feeling a rush of responsibility, Clarke messily throws the blankets and pillows back into some semblance of order. She’s not good at this – domestic things, things a woman was supposed to know by the time she was fifteen to prepare for marriage. She had avoided all that in the city with maids and servants. She tried her hand at sewing, but to no avail. The only ‘womanly’ task she ever mastered was art, but even then her sketches only gave way to an academic interest in the craft, of which her mother disapproved. Her father, on the other hand, supported her passion for art history to the hilt, and even paid for her schooling. If only he was still alive, Clarke thinks miserably. Maybe then she wouldn’t be in this situation.

Clarke eventually gives up on the bed, scowling. She’s sure that she only made it worst, and leaves the room to wander the house even further. The kitchen is spacious, with windows facing east, letting in plenty of sun. There’s also a small parlor, a bathroom (with indoor plumbing, thank the Lord), a library and a door to a cellar. Everything is sparsely furnished, especially the library, much to Clarke’s dismay. There are only a handful of books littering the shelves, most of them about ancient civilizations and history. Clarke reaches for the one that looks the most worn – _The Iliad_ – and carefully pulls it from its place. Dust flies off the book in a small avalanche, and Clarke coughs. These books must not have been read in a long time.

“You like Homer?”

Clarke whips her head around. She hadn’t heard Bellamy enter the room. He’s changed into his work clothes: trousers, suspenders, and a shirt with its sleeves rolled up to the elbow. She certainly appreciates him more in his current attire, but she says nothing of it. “I like the stories. They inspired a lot of beautiful art, like Giulio Romano’s works about the making of the Trojan Horse…” Clarke finds herself beaming at the book’s cover. “He captured it so _well_ in his fresco. It’s probably because he was a student of Raphael.”

When Clarke finally looks up from the book, she meets Bellamy’s gaze, and he’s smiling with amused surprise, but there’s something else. Clarke falters. Is it pride?

“Well,” Bellamy says, smiling at the floor, “I wouldn’t know about the art, but the stories – the stories are important to me.”

An inquisitive silence falls between them, but neither of them act on it. Clarke wonders if that will happen a lot in their marriage.

“Have you looked ‘round yet?”

Clarke nods, placing the book gingerly back on the shelf. “It’s a fine house.”

Bellamy pulls a rag out of his back pocket and wipes his hands and forehead before joining Clarke at the bookshelf. He tentatively lets his outstretched fingers hover over a few books before pulling a book bound in brown leather. “I have to go back out to the fields,” he explains. “While I’m gone, you might wanna look at the garden and the kitchen. Let me know if you want me to grab you anything from town, you know… to make you feel at home.” He clears his throat and hands Clarke the book. She opens it to the first page. It’s a copy of _The Apology of Socrates_.

Clarke’s brow furrows. “Plato?”

“You’ve read it?”

“I can’t say I have.”

Bellamy smiles, heading toward the front door. “Maybe you could read a bit when you’re done. Let me know what you think of it.”

And once again, Clarke is alone, left in the curious wake of her husband. Clarke suspects that Bellamy, despite his humble countenance, is more complex than what she first thought. Clarke is suddenly anxious to read _The Apology_ and discuss it with him over dinner – oh.

Dinner. Cooking. Another task a wife has to do. Another task that Clarke cannot perform. She doesn’t even know where to get water to cook anything. Reluctantly, she rolls up her sleeves, goes on a spelunking expedition in the kitchen to try and make supper.

It shouldn’t take her more than six hours.


End file.
